


Our Northern Star

by cobragirl516



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Gen, Louis-centric, Post-Zayn One Direction, Sad Louis, zouis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-30
Updated: 2016-05-30
Packaged: 2018-07-11 04:01:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7027636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cobragirl516/pseuds/cobragirl516
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zayn has left and Louis breaks down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Our Northern Star

Louis POV

There was a certain thrill stepping outside into the brisk night air and finding that one star in the sky that you just know is there to stay, to guide you for eternity. 

Or so I used to think.

They say Caesar was Polaris, they say he held everything together, the center and none could compare. 

Zayn. Zayn was always our Caesar, the one who took control without realizing and led his way across the Rubicon, carving a hole in each of our chests as his personal rebellion. 

"I'm leaving." 

There was no warning, no signs. I bite the inside of my cheek and swallow. Or perhaps it was just that none of us noticed. 

We used to be partners in crime. When he was packing his suitcase, picking up the sketchbooks and pencils he had stacked up in neat piles, I saw the contrast, I saw how we conflicted. He was orderly, neat piles and steady ballads while I was whipped, feathery mussed up hair and pants strewn across chairs: my voice shook and trembled. 

I needed him, my voice only came through behind his, I thought I was his support. 

And I thought he needed me.

With my guffaws and hard slaps on the back, Zayn observed. He watched from the corner and smiled lightly, slight dimples tickling his sculpted face. We were total opposites. And that's how we complemented each other. I brought out the exuberant side of him, completely careless and impulsive when drunk off his ass, screaming, belting. Those moments, his high notes were completely free, nothing like the steady manufactured ones of the recording studio.

And he calmed me down. When the stress got to me, I would just laugh louder, the sound drowning, drowning all of us into thinking it didn't matter, nothing mattered. But even I couldn't joke forever and afterwards there was management, there was the paparazzi, there were the disappointed phone calls from home. 

Zayn would put his palm on the two dimples on my back, whispering, his voice a murmuring brook in my ears, flowing and calming my raging blood. He would run his fingers through my feathery wisps and sigh, fondling, letting me lean on him and staying silent as the tears began to slip out into a broken dam. 

We were both broken. His voice got lost within ours, behind the interviewer's enthusiasm, behind the constant screaming from the fans. And mine? I forced myself to be even louder, to distract from everything else that was going wrong, pushing, straining until my throat was nothing but a grainy, pulpy mess. 

We were both broken. But we were broken together and so we could be pathetic together and so in some twisted way we weren't broken anymore. 

The night he left I wanted to drag him behind the door and ask him if he really remembered. That one time we planned a fake pregnancy prank on Nickelodeon and Harry took it so badly. That one time I dreamed that there was a new member and our band descended into chaos, so many glares directed at me that all I could do was scream "Zayn! Zayn!" over and over again. He didn't come in that dream but when I told him he laughed and clapped a hand on my shoulder: "I'd always save you Louis." 

But the night he left I chickened out. I saw his inked arms peeking out of that black t shirt and I saw his perfectly chiseled cheekbones and I saw the suitcase dragging behind him and I locked my bedroom door and cried. I don't think any of us said goodbye to him. 

"Remember when you had a life and didn't make bitchy comments about mine?" 

You knew I was terrified of social media. You knew that was where I got lost in threats, hate and tears dripping into my tea. You knew that was why I lashed out whenever someone so much as rubbed me the wrong way, I wanted to at least tell them we were strong, we would last for a fucking long time. 

Reading the words, I heard your voice say it. The same voice that cooed in my hair when my sisters ignored all of my calls and my bastard father spoke impulsively in front of the paparazzi. I heard the monotony, the end, the finality of it all and I knew you weren't coming back. 

But Zayn. Zayn. The moon shone down and it was all I could do not to just start running right there in the silver light and hope I'd find a cliff. 

I hate you for leaving but I hate Liam even more. I hate him for not noticing despite being the Daddy of the group, I hate Niall for his loud laugh that always overshadowed yours, I hate Harry for taking all the attention away from you. But perhaps most of all, I hate myself. For not noticing the signs, for not talking to you about it, for being too scared to say goodbye.

Zayn. Oh Zayn.

I look back up at the sky and realize it is now littered in stars. I can't find the same one from before anymore, Zayn, I lost Polaris. 

I lost you.

And I am lost.


End file.
